Lymantria dispar
by Margit
Summary: Two Frenchmen and a moth. Combeferre and Courfeyrac slash of an inconsequential nature.


The moth landed like a feather on Eugène Courfeyrac's chest, a dusty imperfection on the candlelit gold of his bare skin. Drifting toward oblivion in Combeferre's bed, Courfeyrac took no notice to this new creature

Combeferre's eyes lit up at this new addition to his bed, he being always more attentive in the afterglow than his lover cared to be. His hand trailed downward from its resting placeacross Eugène's chest, Courfeyrac reflexively made to arch into the caress, but Didier stopped him short.

"Hold still."

The reprimand served to stir Courfeyrac from his slumbers, his eyes blinked open just enough for him to glare sleepily at Didier. "What? What's going on?"

"Don't move, you'll scare it away," Combeferre said, his voice hardly above a whisper. "There is a moth on your hip."

Fully awake, Courfeyrac's eyes were wide open and alarmed. "What? Get it off me."

Didier Combeferre laughed softly, so as not to startle the moth or to wound his lover's delicate pride, "It won't hurt you, cheri, most moths would surely be far more interested in your fine clothes, none of which you happen to be wearing at the moment--"

Courfeyrac grinned mischievously as he groped underneath the rumpled sheet for Combeferre's thigh, "And what a stoke of fortune that is."

Disentangling himself from both the sheets and Courfeyrac's wandering hand, Combeferre shook a chastising finger at him, "None of that, I'm serious. There'll be no..." he hesitated with the same half-smirking expression that he always wore when debating a particularly bad pun, "...strokes of fortune while our visitor is still here."

Courfeyrac groaned, wishing that for once in Combeferre's life he could keep a bad joke to himself. Not that he didn't know loads of bad jokes himself, but they were all off-color and therefore at least mildly entertaining (he thought so, anyway. Combeferre found them to be in very bad taste, but had never told him so and likely never would.) Courfeyrac reluctantly complied with the request and only complained once. "Am I permitted to breathe, or might I scare the precious little darling away?"

The sarcasm in his voice was, as usual, lost on Combeferre.

"Lightly, if you please," Combeferre studied the moth on his lover's hip for a moment, moving his hand across Courfeyrac's abdomen for balance as he attempted to examine the moth from eye level. "And do at least try to hold still, Eugène."

"If you move your hand any lower," he heard Courfeyrac say with a sharp intake of breath, "you cannot in any sort of fairness expect me to hold still."

Combeferre heeded Courfeyrac's warning with one ear, too caught up in his own racing thoughts to mind his lover's pleasurable discomfort too much. He bounded out of the bed and raced over to the bookcase that held his multitude of medical and scientific texts jammed into its shelves at every angle. After a momentary search for his spectacles on the nearby desk, Combeferre grabbed a well-thumbed text off the third shelf down and began leafing through it frantically. "Don't move a muscle."

"Fear not, my love, I'm as motionless as a virgin on her wedding night. Or, rather, as stiff as the bridegroom. Whichever you prefer most. Is it going to bite me, do you think?"

"It can't hurt you, Eugène, I've already said -" Combeferre stopped short, having succeeded in finding the proper page. He stood stock still in front of the desk, stark naked and bespectacled, holding the battered book aloft in triumph. "Eureka!"

"You know," Courfeyrac said, interrupting his own chatter in an awed voice, "You look rather splendid like that."

In his typical fashion, Combeferre flushed and resolutely ignored the compliment. He dropped his triumphant posture at once and returned to the bed, sitting down gingerly so as not to disturb the moth from its perch, leaning in closely to compare it to the diagram in the book that he held.

"It's a perfect specimen." Combeferre said, hearing a snort of stifled laughter from his lover.

"I've always thought."

"The moth, you dissolute. Ah, look here, I stand corrected. This moth would likely prefer to eat my oak bedstead--"

"Which is presently in use. Tell it to wait."

Courfeyrac made an attempt to sit up and examine the book, but Combeferre's palm flat on his chest pushed him back into the mattress before he could startle the moth. "What, may I ask, are you intending to do?"

Combeferre had finished comparing the specimen to its counterpart in the diagram and leafed through the book again with one hand while the other restrained Courfeyrac. "I'm going to draw it."

"What, right now?"

"I've never drawn one from a live specimen, it isn't at all like copying the diagrams and this is a perfect opportunity."

"A charming young man in your bed is the perfect opportunity for a lot of things, yes, but sketching an insect isn't one that I'd ever considered."

Combeferre smirked as he turned to the flyleaf in the front of the text and began to carefully draw the moth with a stub of pencil that he had retrieved from the desk. "I'm not worried about you flying away before I'm finished with you, now try not to move while I get the curve of his wing right."

Courfeyrac sighed in defeat and let his head fall back on the pillows, "This is exactly why I never take up with artists."

"Ah, well then, you can commiserate with Feuilly's mistress at the next opportunity."

"Should he ever acquire one, you mean." Courfeyrac said slyly.

"Don't be cruel, Eugène, or I'll take twice as long to finish this and I know that patience is yet another virtue that you never bothered to learn."

"I make a point not to learn anything that I know will fall into immediate disuse. Leaves me more time to hone the really important skills and you can't tell me that you don't appreciate those. Besides, my dear Didier, you've drawn dozens upon dozens of moths, whether they're from your little diagrams or not, I'm beginning to think that you have an unhealthy obsession with pretty creatures possessing a very short lifespan. They eat clothes, too. And beds. Horrid little things, of no use to anyone." Catching sight of the sketch, Courfeyrac stopped short his babbling, "I say, that's rather good. What do you intend to do with it?"

Combeferre thought for a moment, "I intend to give it to you."

"I'll not have you ripping pages from your texts on my behalf, young man," cried Courfeyrac, well aware of Combeferre's high regard for the printed page, "Especially none so noble asan esteemed scientific text."

"The whole book then, take it."

"People will wonder why a law student keeps medical texts with drawings of moths in them amongst his things. Especially books that are inscribed _Didier Combeferre_."

"Let them think that you're a well-read man of science as well as law. They'll be impressed. And they'll think that you stole it, which adds an element of the danger to the study of entomology that would otherwise be lacking."

"Do you think?"

"Of course, I'll be the only one who knows that it isn't so."

"In that case, I must find a way to silence you, lest you spoil my reputation and reveal me as a fraud."

"That might be agreeable."

"Didier?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Am I permitted to move now?"

"It is highly encouraged, yes."

In a flurry of bodies and wrinkled bed sheets, the moth fluttered up amongst the dust motes and into the aureole of warmth around the wick of the guttering candle. His likeness immortalized and his work done, the moth dipped low over the flame and fell into the molten wax on singed wings. The lovers paid no mind when the candle flickered one last time and left the room in darkness.


End file.
